What Is It About the Fantasy Genre Anyway?

[Campbell]

Part of what drew me to fantasy and RPGs is the mostly incorrect idea that history is shaped by Great Men, persons of transcendent ability that shaked the foundations of the world with every step. Fantasy evokes notions of a simpler, more volatile time where these Great Men moved beyond their stations in life, and carved a path to greatness with swords ,tongues, skill, and a primal understanding of the world in which they live. It's all about a yearning to be a master of one's own destiny.

 

[UngainlyTitan]

I disagree. I've seen some SG-1 games run fairly well. You just use a non-standard unit ... like SG-random number

How is that disagreeing with me. Is it not the point I made. You need uncoventional units operating outside the normal chain of command. There is no way to describe the SGC command chain as convertional. I did not mean that there is no chain of command, just that the pc are not in the second squad, platoon 1 of A Company.

 

[(Psi)SeveredHead]

How is that disagreeing with me. Is it not the point I made. You need uncoventional units operating outside the normal chain of command. There is no way to describe the SGC command chain as convertional. I did not mean that there is no chain of command, just that the pc are not in the second squad, platoon 1 of A Company.

Let me put it another way then. There's no reason to use standard military units in a BS:G setting.

I don't see why you made your first reply to my post. I wasn't saying I was bothered by the characters being military, but by them being very competent and being very tech-reliant.

 

[pawsplay]

Then there is the world building aspect. It is easier to take away from our world or worlds of the past and create a fantasy land that it is to create the entire technological and social basis of a society that is operating on scientific principles that we do not currently understand.

Honestly, trying to run a hard SF campaign is about as much fun as trying to run a game in which you play daring lawyers and trying to work out all the realistic legal angles of the cases.

 

[Jhaelen]

I love reading sci-fi novels and enjoy sci-fi movies and the rare good sci-fi tv shows.

Comparably, there's very few truly good fantasy novels and even fewer good fantasy movies/tv shows, imho.

But I still have a strong dislike for modern or sci-fi rpgs. They're just too close to reality for my taste. I vastly prefer low-tech scenarios which are a lot easier to play/DM because of the limited options to 'break' a game. You've only got to look out for spell effects.

 

[Greatwyrm]

I've played and run plenty of fantasy and sci-fi games. Generally, I prefer fantasy. There are a few reasons, the validity of which I won't defend past the end of my keyboard.

1. Escapism is one of the big reasons I play. Its easier for me to escape into a very fantasy setting than a somewhat realistic one.

2. I like to think I'm a fairly bright guy, but arguing about the things that are often "hand waved" away in a sci-fi game isn't a fun night for me. I don't care that the game uses bogus physics for FTL travel. I don't care that cybernetics are terribly impractical. People are generally less likely to argue about the "realism" of magic.

3. I like a more heroic feel to a game. Fantasy tends to lend itself better to this while sci-fi seems better suited to a grittier game.

 

[Nellisir]

I think the defining element of fantasy is the fact that anything is possible, while sci fi is what -could- be possible. That automatically makes fantasy a larger field than sci-fi. I'd bet that most sci-fi games are actually science fantasy instead (ie, Star Wars, Gamma World).

Medieval fantasy also benefits by building our folklore and mythology. Our sci-fi library is only a hundred or so years old; the fantasy library is millenia-old. Our most recurrent themes and tropes come to us through fantasical stories.

 

[JohnRTroy]

Gary Gygax in one of his two books on RPGs (released in the late 1980s), once commented that Fantasy had the most options for creativity, Science-Fantasy the second, Science Fiction (including Hard, Soft, and Superheroes) third, Modern-Day, Espionage or Pulp-style adventures around 4th and then more limited historical period RPGs 5th.

I don't have the book in front of me, but I think he said that Fantasy allowed for more setting options, such as different kingdoms, different environmental realms (underground, underwater, flying, the other planes of existence, even side-treks to the SF and modern). Plus, there are more player options--magic, psychic powers, different races, all allow more options.

Now, the good thing about Fantasy is that you can also get into the esoteric, but then delve back into high adventure and S&S style troupes. (Gygax settings were fantastic but also realistic, he dealt with things like social classes and economic stuff).

When you start getting into the "hard SF" territories, modern, or historical fiction, you get limited to the more mundane differences. For instance, a historical Wild West RPG has limited roles--how different can the characters be from each other--even if you have fleshed out personalities and have cinematic tropes, after say 1 dozen adventures how many times can you say fight bandits or rob trains without it becoming too similar. Even if you added non-magical cinematic moves akin to how 4e combat is handled for fighters, there is still a limit. The existence of high-tech gizmos, psychic powers, magic powers and artifacts, sci-fantasy mutations and comic book superpowers all have an undeniable appeal. At least with Science-Fiction you can have alien races, and in Fantasy games you can have whole "monster manuals" so your dealing with a wide variety of opponents.

 

[Set]

Magic is easier, IMO, to base a traditional storyline around as the 'rules' of magic are squiffy and ill-defined (and can be mangled to suit the storyteller's convenience).

Higher levels of technology are harder and harder to handwave away, and many, if not most, traditional adventure storylines, would fall apart if one of the protagonists had a cellphone or whatever, let alone supertech stuff like transporters (which end up having to oh-so-conveniently fail due to an 'ion storm' or whatever whenever they are needed...). "Oh, we're trapped in an exotic hostile location!" "Get out your cellphone and call for help." "Oh, there's a killer in the house!" "Call 911 and hide until the cops show up." "We have to figure out this puzzle, quick everyone rack your brains..." "Right, I just Googled it. It's the Voynich manuscript." "I can't get the door open, we're trapped!" "According to the online help menu, there's a manual release under the jamb, in case of power failures. Also, I called a locksmith."

Fantasy settings also have a wider range of unique characters in the 'party.' If one wants to play a wizard and another wants to play an archer and another wants to play a sneaky thief, fantasy can keep them all in the same room. In a more futuristic game, everyone ends up being specialists of the same 'class,' whether they are starship troopers or mechwarriors or viper pilots or a star trek away team. There ends up being less flexibility, and there are increased chances that one or more of the characters have abilities that mostly function when they are solo (whether a psychic in dream space, or a mechwarrior in his mech, or a rigger in his hovertank, or a cyberdecker in the virtual realm), leaving the rest of the party behind. It makes it harder to run a single story for four or five people, if half of them have abilities that work best when they are nowhere near each other, entering specialized environments (like cyberspace) or vehicles (like mecha).

Even when I play sci-fi settings (which I do love, especially Trinity), I tend to end up playing 'magical' characters like psychics or alien shapeshifters or whatever, rather than 'dude with gun #1428.' Dudes with guns bore me, and that's, unfortunately, what every single viper pilot or away team member turns into in the end, just another dude with a gun.

 

[Oni]

Take what's yours.

What but fantasy supports that notion and still lets you be the good guy.